It was raining. Caroline had been staying with the Salvatores for a little more than a month, and she had never seen rain up until that day. Even though she was a happy and bubbly person, Caroline loved the rain. She sat on the Salvatores' porch, a cup of hot tea blowing steam in her hands, and stared at the drops of rain falling from the clouds.
She had successfully retrieved the one weapon that gave her a chance to get out alive. Get out of what, you ask? Caroline didn't even know anymore. At first, in the first week or so, she had one goal: survive and get back home. She thought that would always be her plan. But day after day and week after week, Caroline found herself actually enjoying Mystic Falls and the people in there.
She had gotten extremely close to everyone. Elena and Bonnie became her best friends, and she couldn't even understand why; Elena was a vampire and Bonnie a witch. Behind all that, though, they were honest, caring people, and Caroline couldn't help but enjoy being around them.
Damon was hard at first, but Caroline had a special talent for that kind or personality. She knew how to approach hard people, she knew what to say and how to act, she knew where to start and where to stop. Eventually, they got close too, and Caroline had yet another reason to stay in the little town.
She wasn't exactly close to Rebekah, though. Part of that was the girl's choice to not get too involved. Caroline knew Rebecca loved her brother just as much as she hated him, and that made things more difficult to deal with. She didn't blame her, though. She accepted it, quite gladly. One less innocent creature to get dragged down her problems.
All these people were important to her. They stopped their plans, their lives, everything to keep her safe. They barely even knew her, yet they risked their safety to help her. How could she abandon them that easily?
And most importantly, how could she abandon Stefan?
After everything he did for her, after everything he sacrificed, Caroline could and would not leave him. Not unless he asked her to. It was a possibility. Maybe after it was all said and done, he would want her to go away and not bring any more problems into his life. That scared her. She didn't know why, exactly, but the thought of Stefan wanting her to disappear out of his life made her feel like someone was knocking the air out of her lungs. After a month of complete silence from Klaus, maybe he was tired. Maybe he got sick of being so scared all the time because Klaus could show up any time and kill everyone.
Maybe he just wanted her to leave already.
"Hey." Someone said, sitting in the chair next to her. "Are you alright?"
Caroline raised her head, locking eyes with the person sitting next to her, even though she knew who it was before she saw them. "Hi, Stefan. I'm fine. Why do you ask?" She furrowed her brows. Stefan had been getting way too good in knowing how she felt.
"I don't know." Stefan shrugged. "You're all alone in here, staring at your cup, complete silence. That's not like you at all."
Caroline chuckled. "Even I enjoy some silence now and then."
"When you're worried about something, you do." He insisted, determined in finding out what was in Caroline's mind.
"You know me too well." Caroline sighed.
Stefan nodded. "I do." He grinned. "Now talk."
Caroline took a deep breath, setting her now nearly cold cup of tea on the little table nearby her and Stefan's chairs. "I'm just doing some thinking."
"About?" He asked.
"About what's going to happen when all this is done."
Stefan tilted his head slightly. "What do you mean?"
"I just keep asking myself, you know. Where I'm going to go to, what I'm going to do. What you're going to do."
Stefan nodded. "Well, you'll go back to New York. I'm going to stay here. You'll live a long, happy life away from all this supernatural madness and I'm going to... keep out of trouble."
"That's the thing, though. After all I have seen, Stefan, I can't just go back to New York and live a long, happy life."
"It hasn't been all that traumatic for you, has it?" He questioned, worried.
Caroline shook her head. "I'm not traumatized, Stefan. I'm... interested."
"Interested? In what?" Stefan asked, even though he already knew the answer to that question.
"In what it's like to be a vampire. Live forever, never get old, travel, do things, live. I'm never going to be happy, Stefan. Humans don't get to be happy. They get sad, angry, frustrated, broken, hungry, cold, lazy, and sometimes, if they're lucky, they get to be okay. But happiness? That doesn't exist. Humans talk about happy endings, but everything ends in death. How is that happy?"
"You sound way too dark right now."
Caroline smiled. "I know. It's just one of those days I get all deep and emotional, and I start thinking about how much being a human sucks after you've discovered all the privileges of being a creature of the night."
"When you've lived a happy and full life, death doesn't mean anything. You go because it's your time to go. You have no regrets, so you go happily."
"And that happens to, what, 1 person every 10,000? Stefan, that doesn't make any sense. You can get mugged and murdered. You can get raped and murdered, you can get a terrible disease and die agonizing in pain. There is absolutely nothing happy about death, not even when you've had a relatively happy life."
"You say that because you're human."
"And you say that because you're a vampire. You've been a vampire for so long, you forgot how much it sucks to be human."
Stefan stayed silent. Caroline realized she probably talked too much. "I'm sorry." She breathed out.
"It's okay."
"I have really strong opinions sometimes. And I'm really stubborn. That's not so good when it comes to a vampire versus human discussion."
Stefan grinned. "I think it's a good thing."
"Thanks." Caroline smiled, and Stefan smiled back at her, his eyes gleaming.
There was a slight pause between them, and then Stefan cleared his throat, raising his eyebrows. "What else?"
"What do you mean, what else?" She looked at him confusingly.
Stefan sighed. "You're still worried about something."
"I'm not."
"You are."
Caroline avoided Stefan's gaze. She didn't want to talk to him about how she fears he wants her away from him. She knew, though, he would find a way to get it out of her one way or another. It didn't stop her from fighting against it. "I'm not." She repeated.
"You are." He insisted. "Tell me."
There was no point in lying, she knew that. So she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I'm afraid you won't want me around anymore after all this."
Stefan laughed.
Laughed, loud and clear.
Caroline couldn't help but laugh too. Stefan laughing was something else entirely. It filled Caroline's ears and made her happy instantly, and the only thing she could do was join him, even though her laugh was shy and unsure.
Stefan stopped laughing, and, almost breathless, spoke. "You're not serious, are you?"
Caroline looked down at her lap. "I am."
Stefan clenched his jaw. "You shouldn't say that." He said, almost offended. "Caroline, you're... you. How can I not want you around?"
She bit her lower lip, suppressing a smile. "I just thought that maybe you'd want me to get the hell out of your life, you know? All I do is put your friends in danger and put you in danger and talk a lot."
"You snore, too. Loudly."
"Shut up!" She shoved him in the arm playfully. "I'm not joking."
Stefan took a deep breath and looked at Caroline. "Caroline, I will always want you around. That's never going to change, ever. I'm so glad I met you, no matter how messed up the circumstances were." His eyes were gleaming, Caroline noticed, and she couldn't help but grin. "I want to keep you safe, though. The safest place for you is away from me. But I will never push you away or say I don't want you here."
"Promise?" Caroline asked, biting her lower lip.
Stefan nodded. "Promise."
And then Stefan smiled in a way that made Caroline's stomach feel funny.
'Oh, God.' She thought. 'Are these butterflies?'
Caroline liked to take pride on the fact she was a good liar. She could be an actress, even, if you consider all the body work she has to do to make a lie convincing.
When she noticed those stupid butterflies, when she looked at Stefan's smile and eyes and felt like she was seeing something entirely different in him, she acted. She lied. She continued her conversation with Stefan, talked about Elena, Damon, the weather, anything that didn't involve any eye contact. She waited until he had to be somewhere else to finally stop, breathe, and try to organize the different thoughts racing though her mind.
Caroline was an adult. A grown woman. She was no naive teenager who felt butterflies flying on the wall of her stomach when she saw a cute boy. Not even three months ago she was in a serious and committed relationship. She was in a house full of vampires, though. So what exactly did she know about life? And about herself?
At that exact moment, though, she knew one thing and one thing only: she felt something. Something different. Something for Stefan. For weeks she had been laughing at Damon's jokes about how Stefan loves her and they're "love birds", in Damon's exact words. For weeks she had been growing closer and closer to Stefan and for weeks she had never once thought about how much she liked having him around and how much she cared about him.
Why was she thinking about it now? She felt something strange the moment her eyes met with Stefan's while he was telling her how much he cared about her, yes. But that could have been anything. Right?
Maybe Caroline was just emotional. Maybe she was emotional and the fact that a handsome, almost too-perfect guy showed concern for her was enough to make her knees go weak, no matter if that handsome and almost too-perfect guy was her friend. Her best friend.
Maybe that was it. Maybe the stress of not knowing where Klaus was and what he was planning was finally taking its toll on her and she was going insane. Maybe life away from her friends, away from Matt, away from her family, was hitting her all at once and the only comfort she had was Stefan's words and it made her feel confused.
Any of those excuses would do. She would believe in anything. Try, at least. She would try to believe in anything that didn't involve the words "in love with Stefan". Yes, that's what she would do. She would tell herself those damn butterflies were just her imagination playing tricks, making fun of stupid little Caroline. That feeling that took over her and made her head spin was nothing more than nostalgia. She missed Matt. She missed being with April and going out and having fun. She missed her old life and the only thing that made her feel like she wasn't vampire food was hanging out with Stefan and talking to him and being close to him, no matter how ironic that sounded.
Because Caroline could and would not give herself the luxury of falling in love. Not even having a crush. No, she wouldn't let it happen. Not in her situation, not when she could be dead in weeks, maybe days. Not when Stefan could be dead just as quickly as her.
The voice on the back of Caroline's mind, though, laughed at her. "You don't get to choose who you love, Caroline. Stop being so stupid. You have feelings for Stefan and there's no running away or hiding. Deal with it."
She ignored it.
But just because you choose to ignore something, it doesn't mean it goes away.
Don't forget to review! Sorry I didn't post a new chapter yesterday, I had a loooong day and went to bed early. Hope you like this one :)